Page 1 of Faithless
PROLOGUE
SANTOS
Ihad never seen anything like it before. Blood and carnage covered the sands. Audience members in the colosseum were standing, yelling and pumping their fists at the grisly scene below. My fellow gladiators stood at my sides, shoulders stiff with tense grips on their weapons.
None of this was unusual. But the violence happening right then on the sands was unprecedented, at least in my four years as a gladiator.
The pitmasters had unleashed a black jaguar, its spots in the glossy coat visible only at certain angles in the harsh sunlight. That in itself wasn’t usual either. They loved to throw large animals into the fights. I’d fought jaguars before, and they weren’t even the biggest of cats. They’d set loose lions, bears, bulls…even full-grown elephants.
It took fifteen gladiators to take down the last elephant, a male in his prime. Five men had been either crushed to death or gored on those massive tusks. But eventually, the big beast fell. The animals always did, often taking a few gladiators with them.
But this one. This black jaguar that may have even been small for its species, killed everything in its path. Nobody could even scratch it.
It darted like a shadow across the sands, leaving blood and detached limbs and entrails behind. When it slowed or paused, all I saw were its bloody teeth before it became a blur again.
At first, the pitmasters threw a few gladiators at it, one by one. Then they sent two at a time. Then three. Then five.
The last one in the group of five was running away, dragging a bloody, maimed leg behind him. The cat followed at a leisurely pace, then crouched down and wiggled its rear end before pouncing on the man.
This creature was playing with us.
“They’re gonna run out of gladiators,” the Ghost muttered to my left.
I tightened my grip on my twin machetes in response, hoping that wouldn’t be the case. We were easily replaceable, sure. All they had to do was enslave more able-bodied men, put a weapon in their hands, and throw them out into the pit.
But being short on gladiators meant fewer fights, which was bad for business. They already had to replenish our numbers at a steady rate, considering a handful of us died every single day.
I was banking on them calling this fight soon. Sending fighters out to this demon of a jaguar might as well have been putting live men through a wood chipper. We were dropping like flies, and no one stood a chance.
But the crowd was going nuts over it. So this could potentially get dragged out for the sheer entertainment value.
The jaguar dragged the last man by the throat to the center of the pit, leaving a trail of blood behind. It released the body, letting it fall limply into the sand, then turned to face the rest of us behind the gate.
Something happened the moment the animal’s eyes met mine.
A sensation overtook me that nearly brought me to my knees. This jaguar was no animal or person but...more. It was time and history, bloodshed and the purest devotion. It had seen the rise and fall of empires, centuries of colonization and genocide. This thing was timeless, ageless. And all of this perspective happened to be contained in a snarling, four-legged package that walked straight toward me.
Tezcatlipoca.
The word ran across my brain, making me shiver in the hundred-degree heat, and I knew it was this entity’s name.
“Butcher.” The pitmaster called for me and angled his head. Before I could even process what was happening, the gate in front of me opened, and I was shoved forward. I heard Ghost hiss out a protest, but there was nothing he could do. If I was picked to fight, I couldn’t refuse. None of us could. Nor could I turn around, to try getting away from the fight. Cowardly gladiators were captured and corralled separately for the bare-knuckles fights, in which a mob of five other men were tasked with beating him to death.
Now, nothing stood between me and whatever this thing parading as a jaguar was. I stepped out from under the awning of the building into the harsh sunlight. The crowd reinvigorated itself, the noise elevating to a roar when they saw me.
I was a crowd favorite. It was them who had named me the Butcher, after all.
Normally, I liked to play it up for the audience and give them a good show. Not because I enjoyed it, but it kept me alive and made me valuable as a fighter. The resort even sold charms of my twin machete blades in the gift shops.
But right then, showmanship was the last thing on my mind. I could actually die today.
I held those blades out to the sides, forcing my feet toward the cat-shaped shadow in the pale white sand when all I wanted to do was fall to my knees before this creature.
I was human and unworthy. A sack of flesh, only 28 years old. A slave, and barely even a person. I hadn’t made a single decision for myself in four long years. What was I to this thing that could take my life with one bite to my windpipe?
When I was nearly ten feet away from the jaguar, it sat down.
It just calmly planted its hindquarters on the ground and tilted its head at me like a curious housecat. My breath felt stuck in my chest, and I circled my wrists to make my blades dance. The weight of them was comforting, a natural extension of my arms, but the last half hour of watching this animal slaughter grown men could not be erased from my mind.
